Fun with celebrity tour riders

There’s this magic list that will tell you just about all you need to know — a list that proves definitively that most celebrities are the worst people on the planet, second only to Congress.

It’s called a tour rider, a contract between a venue and a performer. Whether it’s an arena rock band, a dancing pop star or a racist stand-up comedian making bad jokes with hand puppets, a rider is a giant list of everything the artist needs to make their show go off without a hitch. For bands playing massive venues like arenas, riders can be pretty complicated once you factor in all of the equipment and support crew.

Van Halen famously stipulated in a rider that all brown M&Ms be removed from the backstage candy bowl. David Lee Roth later admitted that this wasn’t a diva moment — it was necessity. At the time, the band was using complicated pyrotechnics. After one of their techs nearly died due to venue error, the band buried the brown M&M stipulation deep into a list of technical needs, knowing that, if they found brown M&Ms in their candy bowl, other areas of the rider may have been overlooked as well.

Most riders, however, seem built around the premise that people are selfish, egomaniacal lunatics. Can we all please remember that we are just walking, breathing sacks of meat and bones? Thank you.

In her rider, Madonna requires that every piece of furniture in her dressing room(s) be replaced with furniture shipped in before the event. She also requires 20 international phone lines, white and pink roses (stems cut to six inches) and an on-site acupuncturist. Katy Perry’s rider stipulates that her driver neither speak to her nor make eye contact, which is clearly very sane and normal so chill, everybody.

Rapper DMX requires three boxes of condoms and a gallon — an entire gallon — of Hennessey. That is both admirable and terrifying. Kanye West’s rider asks for several moisturizers, which sounds about right. John Mayer’s rider is detailed and finicky, as can be expected, but I applaud his inclusion of The New York Times and one box of “kids’ brand cereal.” Quick: Somebody get this man some Lucky Charms and today’s paper or no one’s body will be a wonderland tonight.

After an early Foo Fighters rider went viral (“Artist shall not be required to share dressing room with any other performer, except Supergrass, Oasis or maybe Led Zeppelin”), the band’s tour manager created one in coloring book form. Foo Fighters, it seems, is one of the few bands who have both a sense of humor and a sense of common decency.

“Most of the rider is meant to make sure that the road crew are fed properly — those guys show up at —— seven o’clock in the morning, and they don’t leave that venue until about two o’clock in the morning,” band frontman Dave Grohl said in a 2011 interview with Rolling Stone. “To be honest, that rider has more to do with them than anybody else. I could survive on microwaved burritos and Crown Royal.”

The Smoking Gun has compiled dozens of artist riders, which it has organized by category (alternative, country, boy bands, Bieber) at TheSmokingGun.com/Backstage. Don’t leave without reading Iggy Pop’s.

My favorite rider item, by far, comes from electronic indie rocker Grimes: “If possible, one cute bulldog, French bulldog, pug or Pomeranian (or other cute animal, such as a chinchilla or a Pekinese) to visit and hang out but who gets to leave before too much loud noise is heard so that he or she does not hurt their ears. It is important that if said animal visits, they have a safe home to return to. lol.”